Fear can be one of the most debilitating emotions we feel. Whether it’s a specific situation, a phobia, or general anxiety, overcoming fear seems almost impossible. Tackle your fears with these five easy steps to rid your life of the negative emotions that are holding you back.

1. Play the “What If” Game

When faced with fear, we often picture the worst possible outcomes. You may be afraid of public speaking, going for a better job, or trying something new. It may actually help to play out your fears in your head to realize that feeling afraid is not the end of the world. Ask yourself, “What is the worst possible scenario?” Once you have identified what could go wrong, you will not only be able to better prepare for these outcomes, but also realize that your life will still go on. You may not get that job or you might mess up during a public speech but will have plenty of other opportunities to get it right the next time.

2. Remember to Breathe

In a high-anxiety situation, many people forget to breathe properly. Quick and shallow breathing is unhealthy and will only make it harder to keep calm. Be mindful of your breathing and take several slow, deep breaths for an instant feeling of tranquility.

3. Exercise

Everyone knows the health benefits of exercise, but there are also great improvements in mental health. Exercise has been proven to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. Even a thirty minute walk around your neighborhood will banish fear and boost your sense of well being. Make sure it is part of your daily routine to maintain your physical and mental health.

4. Talk It Out

Sometimes, it may help to talk to a trusted friend or even a professional about your fears. A friend can lift you up and give you positive advice for an upcoming job interview or public speaking engagement. It might also help just to say your fears out loud to a friend. They may even seem silly if you verbalize your worries. For more serious feelings of anxiety or specific phobias like heights or flying, a therapist may be to help you to work to overcome these fears and improve your quality of life.

5. Carry a Soothing Reminder

When you are in the middle of a fearful situation, carry a small token as a physical reminder to keep calm. This can be any “lucky” item you already have, such as a coin, keychain, or charm. A picture of soothing location or a funny comic can be tucked into a book or folder to look at and ease your nerves. A small item can provide a huge amount of comfort and a steadying influence as you face your fear.

Overcoming your fear can open the door to so many new and exciting opportunities. Our anxieties often seem insurmountable and we don’t go for what we want in life. Failure and rejection are two common fears that can easily be tackled with these five easy steps. These suggestions will help unlock your potential and pave the way for your future successes!

Remember the buddy system from way back when, maybe during your days at summer camp or school field trips? The idea was that kids would be safer if they were at least in pairs, keeping an eye out for each other. I would like to suggest that all of us who have embarked on the journey of personal development should also be using the buddy system. That may sound a bit corny, but stick with me and I think you’ll see why it makes sense.

1. Two Heads are Better than One

You might also recall the age-old saying that two heads are better than one. I know it’s a cliché, but how do you think something gets to the status of being a cliché in the first place? Because there’s at least a kernel of truth to it, that’s why! You can try to do all your personal development work in a vacuum, but you’ll be more successful at it if you have a buddy or partner to work with. You can bounce ideas off of each other, share the joys and challenges of personal development, and generally support each other in your efforts at self-improvement.

2. Accountability

Accountability. Now there’s a word many of us really don’t like to hear, let alone apply to ourselves, right? We love to hold other people accountable to all sorts of standards we dream up for them, but we suddenly fall silent and begin feeling very uncomfortable any time the accountability spotlight is turned towards us. After all, who wants to shine a nice bright light on our own failures and shortcomings? But the plain fact of the matter is that unless we find a way to hold ourselves accountable to hopes, dreams, goals and objectives, they will remain unachieved. When you first put yourself on the path of personal development you might have done a lot of different goal-setting exercises and laid out some ambitious plans for things you wanted to accomplish. How many of those have come to pass? If the answer is something like depressingly few, then maybe it’s time to think about finding a personal development buddy or partner.

3. A Buddy is Different than a Coach or Mentor

Keep in mind that when I speak of a buddy or partner, I do not mean a personal coach or mentor. It’s great to have those, and if you do, more power to you. What I’m thinking of is different from that. Even if you have coaches and mentors, I think you should also have a PD buddy or partner

The role of a coach or mentor is to be the one who teaches you, inspires you and pushes you to new heights. But when it comes to the day-to-day grind of personal development, what you also need is a partner. Think about it this way: Back in college or high school, did you have study sessions with another classmate or group of classmates? Many of you did. Did you have those study sessions with the teacher? Probably not. That’s the difference between a coach/mentor and a buddy/partner. The PD partner is a person who’s also the journey and with whom you can share the ups and downs while also holding each other accountable (in an encouraging, supportive, positive kind of way) to achieve your goals and objectives.

None of this personal development stuff is rocket science, but we all need some support to really make progress. We can’t do it completely alone, in a vacuum. What fun would that be, anyway? Nearly everything in life is quite a bit sweeter when you’re sharing it with someone else, so let’s apply that to our personal development work as well.

Who should be your personal development partner? It could be your life partner. It could be a close friend. It could be someone you don’t know very well at all but who you know is also on the personal development journey. It just needs to be someone who can be supportive of what you’re trying to accomplish.

So now I’m really curious. Do you have a PD buddy or partner? Please share in the comments section how the experience has been for you. If you don’t have a PD partner, I hope you’ll be willing to seek one out and give it a try. If you do, please let us know how it goes by sharing your experiences in the comments area!

Let me share with you a little fantasy I have. Don’t worry, it’s not going to be kinky or weird, but hopefully it will get you thinking about personal development in a whole new way. In this fantasy of mine there is a brand new event in the Olympics called… wait for it… Personal Development! Why do I wish personal development were an Olympic event? Think about it. Athletes who aspire to compete in the Olympics put themselves on a very deliberate path of arduous training to get there. They have to single-mindedly pursue that goal and put in hours and hours of hard work to make it happen. I think that’s what each and every one of us has to do in our personal development work if we want to succeed.

Personal Development Training

An athlete undergoes physical training to build up the muscles they need to excel in their particular sport. I think the same holds true for personal development. There are all kinds of skills we need that facilitate our personal development. Let’s think of those skills like the muscles of an athlete. The skill I want to tell you about today is risk-taking.

You might never have thought of risk-taking as a skill, but it really is. You took a risk when you put yourself on the path of personal development. The question now is this: What risks have you taken since then? In my athletic metaphor, our personal development skills are like muscles. And you know what happens if a muscle doesn’t get exercise, right? It atrophies, becoming weak and ineffective. If you haven’t been exercising your risk-taking muscle it’s probably a bit flabby, and that might be one factor contributing to a lack of progress in your personal development work.

So how do you build up and strengthen your risk-taking muscle?

I think the training routine here is all about pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone. That’s exactly what an athlete in training does. They take themselves up to their limit, then they push themselves just a bit beyond that limit and that is what builds the muscle. So to build your risk-taking muscle you have take risks, which means deliberately pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone. It’s the only way to build the muscle, and risk-taking as an essential skill in personal development work. Why? Because you have to set goals that represent an improvement, that try to achieve something you don’t have now. You’re unsatisfied with the status quo of your life and attempting to do something about it definitely qualifies as taking a risk. Here are two quotes from my favorite philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, that help put it in perspective:

To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily.
Not to dare is to lose oneself.
and

During the first period of a man’s life
the greatest danger is not to take the risk.

Most people go through their lives unsatisfied with the way things are going, but they never take the risk to do anything about it. The reason for this usually boils down to fear, and taking action is a great way to overcome fear. So go ahead, take a risk and set a really audacious goal for yourself. Then start doing something to make it happen. If you need more information on the art of risk-taking, check out Tyler Tervooren’s Advanced Riskology.

As always, please share your thoughts and experiences with risk-taking in the comments area so we can all learn from each other. Perhaps you took a big risk and it paid off in spades. Tell us about it! Maybe you took a big risk and totally flopped. What did you learn from that experience? Everyone will benefit more from this forum if we think of it as a place to interact with each other about our personal development work.